You call it madness
by Enrigo
Summary: "Did you know that ballet is a cure for madness?" When Lily Luna dances, there's no home in sight, but there's no madness either
1. Chapter 1

_(And the devil said; come)_

It's a wednesday and she's young and seventeen. Ready to take on the world, her future's lying at her feet.

It's a wednesday and she's lying alone on the scene floor at the city's biggest opera. The world is silent around her and if not for the single spotlight being pointed straight at her she might as well thought herself to be in another world.

It's a wednesday night and her lips are still swollen from kissing and her shirt's been unbuttoned and her neither regions are still tingling in a way that's not innocent at all.

The clock strikes twelve and it's a thursday morning, it's still thirty five days left for Christmas.

 _(And the girl whispered back; soon)_

...

It's a monday afternoon in late November, outside it's raining. Inside the studio it's warm and Lily's socks are drenched in sweat, mrs Madge's been screaming at the top of her lungs for what feels like two eternities and Lily just feels like dying.

"we've been training for hours," she groans loudly to no one particular, "ain't time to get a pause?"

The group of anorectic bitches(read; fellow ballerinas) all stop doing whatever they're doing and just stares at her like she's some kind of gorilla or something. All the staring is quite unnerving and Lily suddenly feels like a giant elephant in the crowd of thin swans. Damn ballerinas and their discipline.

It's Nico who rips the tense silence in a thousand pieces with his deep voice, "sure darling," he says with the usual glint in his eye, "time for lunch"

As the other girls all drop of to the refreshment room, idly chatting dumb shit to each other, Lily feels the usual irritation washing over her.  
"How come they always look at me like I'm crazy," she exclaims to Nico "and then you say something and they all fucking swoon!"

Nico just looks at her, his big brown eyes burrowing down into her soul, she thinks of a golden retriever. A very good looking one. "They don't like you" he slowly says, his russian accent so thick it's almost ridiculous, "because you lack my good looks" he ends his speech with a fiery grin that Lily thinks should be reserved for porn videos and not friendly teasing.

"whatever" she mutters, changing her focus to something easier to grasp her mind around, like filling her stomach with food. Not that it really should count as food, a bowl of quinoa and maybe some halloumi if she's lucky, that ain't really her thing. But, as every other ballerina, she's good at remembering those times when she had it worse. So much worse.

Like for example, when she didn't have Nico as dance partner.

...

It's monday night and Lily Luna wonders about the possibility of going mad.

According to statistics there's a higher possibility of going mad when you are far from home or when you don't really know what happened in order for your life to go the way it went.

(Lily likes statistics, it's like a truth printed in black and white on a piece of paper. No grey in sight, Lily hates thinking of the grey. The grey shades hiding between the black and white is no truth. It's a coincidence.)

When Lily Luna looks at her apartment there's no home that she looks at. There are no paintings giving life to the walls or any other sort of decorations. The apartment is actually a kitchen with a mattress next to the sink and a small bathroom without a bathtub. She once had a TV, but when she realized she never used it she sold it. Instead she bought a bookcase. There's no books standing on the shelves. Only a pair of ballet shoes she forgot to throw away when they got worn out.

Suddenly, Lily feels so lost in a way too big world.

...

When Lily Luna dances, she's not at home, but there's something that makes her feel so at peace.

Nico once asked how she got into dance, the day she turned up at the studio one morning, drenched in rain, declaring that she wanted to audition for the part of the swan in the swan lake.

Lily didn't know how to answer the question without lying too much while at the same time not giving away too many truths. She ended up at a compromise;

"Did you know that ballet is a cure for madness?"

...

It's a monday night, with Lily Luna Potter slowly dancing back to back with her madness in a home which isn't really a home.

It's thirty eight days left for Christmas


	2. Chapter 2

I don't own Harry Potter, of course.

* * *

It's a tuesday morning, with sunshine shining down on humanity as some kind of redemption for the last week's rain. As always, the humans are forgiving and throw their jackets to the ground, happily absorbing the sun on their skin.

Even though the nice weather, Lily's wearing black. Long black dress and high heels, back at the apartment she had a hard time choosing between sunglasses and black lipstick. In the end she took them both because in Lily's world you can't be dramatic enough.

"Dressed for a funeral?" a not so nice man asks her on the subway, she only smiles.

"yeah" she answers, no trace of sunshine in her voice, only the darkest of winters "yours"

...

When she crosses over the threshold to _Coffee 'n Space_ there's absolutely no one inside except for Rebecka (read; the tallest girl east of Russia), so she takes the sunglasses off. Looking dramatic is of no use when the only person who sees it is a complete nerd who probably owns a collection of toenails.

"You're late" Rebecka states without looking up from whatever she's doing.

As Lily's already aware of her delay she doesn't answer, instead she focuses on starting up the coffee machines. But of course, Rebecka is't the one to accept people not showing up when they're scheduled to do so.

"What if the morning rush showed up just five minutes earlier" Rebecka's voice is too loud, to annoying, Lily gets a sudden urge to scream. Instead she closes her ears, letting Rebecka's voice wash over her in a steady pour.

It's not until the first guest appears that Rebecka finally shuts up, and thank god, finally.

.

It's a tuesday, and tuesday means no ballet and a lot of work for Lily. Instead of going to work at nine and going home by five she's there until midnight. And because of happy customers with too much to drink there's a big possibility of not being home until two hours later.

 _Coffee 'n Space_ is no big café, on a usual day it's half empty in the big local. On those days Lily just takes it easy, sometimes she'll even let the customers decide the next song on their playlist. On those days it's almost calming to walk around in the café, surrounded by the smell of coffee and cinnamon buns.

And then there's tuesday, the worst day of the week. On tuesday it's debate night, aka the night when everyone with something to say says it. Or, shouts it with their loudest voice as if they can make somebody understand them better by raising their voice. The debate night's usually have some kind of theme, like _feminism_ or which team should win superbowl.

Today it's whether magic exists or not.

Nice

.

Debate night starts at eight, every person gets to speak undisturbed for five minutes, then it's someone else's turn. Another rule is that after 8.30 it's possible to order irish coffee, with or without the coffee.

Lily is the one who has to keep the debates nice and friendly. Sometimes she has to remind someone of their time being up, sometimes she has to break up a fight. When it comes to _feminism_ and _rape_ it's always the latter. Not that Lily minds, it feels good to use her muscles for other things than ballet or at the gym. And every time she almost gets knocked down she feels just a bit like Wonder Woman.

When the first speaker walks up to the makeshift stage made of a table, he starts with the words "I believe in magic and I'm an atheist."

Lily just sighs, it's going to be a long night. And of course she's right, the speaker continues with a few lines of Shakespeare to prove that the dead playwrighter was not a human but a wizard. Lily let's him talk for three minutes, then her patience's gone and she lets someone else speak instead.

She doesn't look at Rebecka when she gets back to the bar and pours herself a big cup of irish coffee.

Without the coffee of course.

.

It's tuesday night, slow and silent. If Lily was a petty know-it-all (read; Rebecka) she would say it was a Wednesday morning, but Lily is nothing like those people. So she says it's still tuesday until the sun is up and there's a flying pig in her wardrobe.

She's lying on the floor in her apartment. Quietly humming the tune of the piece they're dancing; Giselle with her as the sick little dancer and Nico as Albrecht. It's one of her favorites, though it will never beat Coppélia, the story of a realistic doll that charms a village to the point that a woman has to dress up as the doll as to not lose her lover.

As she hums the melody of the first act of Giselle, she lets her hands hover above her body. Moves them to the beat of her humming, she is music, music is her. The dance is a code carved into her bones, if she just closes her eyes and breathes, all the moves will just come to her.

And suddenly she hears a crash coming from her bathroom, then a low pitter patter that seems to move towards her.

She gets about five seconds to get up from the floor and stretch out her neck muscles, then the small owl steps into the room. A quick look at the clock, it's five minutes left to midnight, the owl must have been sent around two days ago.

The owl looks at her with its gigantic eyes, as if it wants to tell Lily something. It opens its beak, and fuck, if it begins to scream then her neighbors will hear, and then. Then. They. Will. Know.

"Shhhhhhh" Lily feels the embarrassment heat up her cheeks as she hushes at the owl. For extra safety she presses the owl's beak shut, probably earning herself a spot in hell for it. "I'll give you food, take it easy!" she whispers to the bird. Not really sure on why she whispers.

She carries the small owl to the kitchen, about two meters away, and places it on the countertop. She hopes she has some kind of owl food at home, otherwise she'll be lying dead in her bathtub. She can see the evil just floating around in those owl eyes, god, she hates birds so much.

...

She found an unopened bag of sunflower seeds behind a half empty bag of dog food, and she poured some seeds onto a platter before leaving the bird to eat its dinner alone. When she later went back to the kitchen after taking a shower, the bird was long gone. Only a letter, stained with something that probably was owl poop, was left behind as a reminder of the evil bird.

As she looks at the letter lying on the counter top, it makes her feel like watching a ticking bomb. Her heart begins to speed up just by thinking about what her family wants her. She almost wants to throw it away, maybe rip it to shreds. Would she be a crazy person if she ate it?

Slowly, as if someone put time on slow-motion, she picks up the letter, mindful of the poop stain. God, what if they want to meet her by Christmas?

There's no address on the letter, only two words written in her brother's loopy handwriting; _To Lily_. Nice, she's a master at reading between the lines of letters like this one. Her brother's a passive aggressive fucker.

When she opens the letter she realizes there's only one piece of paper with only one sentence on it, written with the same loopy handwriting but this time the paper's dented. Seems like her brother's anger took it's toll on the letter.

 _We know you're not fucking busy,_ maybe it's a warning for things yet to come. Maybe it's accusation for being a shitty sister. At least it's true, Lily doesn't even have a christmas party to attend.

...

At night, she wonders what she'll say when the yearly call comes. When her mother asks her to come home, when her father reminds her of the family she left behind together with the country she grew up in.

Maybe, just maybe, it's time to go home.


	3. Chapter 3

I don't own Harry Potter

Sorry for not updating but I was on vacation. My goal is to update once a week from now on.

Notes;

Hilarion; a boy who fell in love with Giselle and mourned her death.

Gaston; the conceited shit in Beauty and the beast.

* * *

On chirstmas day when James lost in a wrestling fight with Teddy, thirtheen glasses in the kitchen exploded toghether with a lamp. If his parents weren't so happy for their firstborn son showing sign of magic the whole holiday would have gone to hell. Now it just became another reason to celebrate.

When Albus turned five, he changed his mother's hair into a deep blue, as revenge he said. Revenge for what still remains a mystery as he never told anyone. Anyway, the point with the story wasn't to prove that Lily Potter's brothers are complete arses, which they of course are. The point is what a big thing it is to show yourself to have magic running through your veins.

Lily Luna never made any lamps explode when she turned four, and she didn't dye anyones hair a year later. Nothing happened when the year she blew out six candles on her birthday cake, and neither the year after. Lily was a anomaly in her normality.

And the day came when she woke up to birthday songs and eleven candles to blow out. And the day went without any sort of letter from a particular school.

So Lily watched her siblings leave home without her again, again and fucking again. And she couldn't do anything about it, because something in her DNA made her to be different.

...

As a girl attending secondary school there was no such thing as taking friends home, the muggle girls wouldn't understand the talking mirrors or the owl sleeping in the kitchen sink.  
She never had a best friend, couldn't give out so much of herself to another girl. Every time she felt that someone grew closer to her she returned to her shell.  
After a few years Lily became known as cold and distant. She heard people talking about her, how she never sat at someones table more than twice a week. How she knew everyone but didn't _know_ anyone.  
She was the ice queen, who danced from person to person, tiptoeing trough the school corridors.

Her family made it a point to be welcoming and be a part of Lily's life, but no matter how much they cared they could never really understand. When Lily came home crying because of grades they rubbed her back and wiped her tears, they didn't tell their daughter that grades weren't that important and wouldn't decide your future. Not that Lily could actually blame them, in the magic world there was no such thing as grades before turning fifteen.

...

It turns into a friday morning, with Nico and the other bitches (read; other ballerina's) all gathered in the studio.

"Have you read the news recently?" a girl who Lily dimly recognized as Miranda asked Lily as she opened the door to the studio. Receiving a stern look from Mrs Madge as she shouts over the whole room.  
"No, why do you ask?" Lily replies without even turning around from the bar at the other end of the room. Stretching is after all much more important than socializing with other people.

"Well, then you didn't see your face plastered all over it?" Miranda quipps with a slight smile. She has quite white teeth, Lily notices as she turns around to look at her. Not even the slightest tint of yellow.

"What?" she almost shouts at the other girl, who's smile just widens. She lets go of the bar and eases back onto her heels, it feels better to talk with another person when you're not towering above the other on your toes.

"I figured you to be a person who doesn't read the news" Miranda chuckles as she reaches into her pink sport bag "so I took it with me" as she talks she picks up the daily newspaper from her bag and shows it to Lily. Lily latches on to the paper and pulls it to her with Miranda still hanging on it. It quickly turns into some sort of tug-of-war and they both laugh. When Miranda finally lets go of the paper, they've already attracted a small crowd.

"What are you two doing?" Mrs Madge asks with her stern voice. Lily just looks at her before turning her gaze to the paper. Miranda says something that Lily never hears. She's to occupied with the paper, and the picture of her.

She lets the thought slowly sink in as she quickly reads the article;  
She. Is. In. The. Paper. (Maybe she can show it to her family so they finally can understand what she's doing in the muggle world. Or maybe not, they don't read french.)  
Maybe. She'll. Become. Famous. (What if the reason they write about her is something bad, like their ballet being the worst version of Giselle ever or something?)

...

The article is about the version of Giselle they're dancing, just like Lily thought. But it's not any negative critique, it's actually the whole way around. The two different authors seem to like the gay Hilarion and the black Albrecht.

Lily reads the text thrice and absorbs the words like a sponge. Traces the letters and hungrily gazes at the photo, the picture of Lily that takes up the whole front page. It's even a good photo, with Lily clad as the black swan from the studio's production last year. Her red hair burning against her painted white skin. She looks like the devil but with a sadder face. She looks marvelous.

"Are you like Gaston or something?" Nico asks as they stretch together.

"What?" Lily screeches back, startled, "no!"

Nico looks at her, his dark hair tousled at his forehead. "It's just" he says and Lily wonders what to trust, his frowning eyebrows or his smiling eyes, "you've been staring at that picture for, like twenty minutes."

Lily feels herself blushing as she drops the paper to the floor, "it's just," oh god, is she becoming Gaston, she knew she looked in the mirror a bit too long this morning. "I've never had a picture of myself in the paper"

Nico chuckles and Lily knows that his eyes spoke the truth, he's just teasing.  
"Oh fuck off" she exclaims while jabbing at Nico's chest with a finger, "Go away and flirt with someone instead of bothering me, mr Charming!"

As Nico laughs Lily gets the feeling of belonging, like Nico is the long-lost brother she always needed. Not that she says anything about it to Nico, he would just laugh even more and tell her he's not taken yet. And that's like, not that nice when you try to be emotional.

...

Miranda sits with them during lunch, doesn't talk much but smiles the more. She's a nice girl, Lily thinks, probably the one to give away her last tampon if someone is in need.

"I grew up in Italy" Miranda tells them while eating her microwaved pasta, "my mother was a die-hard catholic."  
Lily looks at the girl and marvels at the way she twirls her spaghetti with a plastic spoon, she almost wants to tell the girl what a stereotype she looks like. Instead she asks "and you, do you believe in God?"

Miranda looks up with a lifted eyebrow, "you go directly at the deep questions" she remarks before filling her mouth with spaghetti and some sauce, chews slowly, "no, I never believed, maybe that's the reason I moved here"

Nico snorts into his sandwich "because Paris is such a ungodly city" Thousands of sandwich pieces flies out of his mouth as he chuckles at his own joke, Lily looks on horrified as Miranda gets bombarded by the food.

"It's better than Florence, at least" Miranda replies with a grim smile as she wipes her face from sandwich crumbs. "And it's a nice change, hearing french instead of italian I mean."

"As a frenchman, I'm glad to hear that you think so" Nico smiles at Miranda with all his warm niceness. Lily feels herself pitying Miranda for having to deal with Nico's flirting right from the start. At least she seems to handle it well.

"As a brit" she suddenly hears herself saying, "I think the frogs in this country talk way to much and drink to little tea."  
The others laugh at her joke, Lily gets the warm fuzzy feeling in her gut when her laugh joins the others. Friends, she decides, are good. New and old alike.

...

The phone call comes at night, short and cold. Christmas.

Fuck Christmas.

With the letter she received last night in mind, she says she's not busy during the holiday. Maybe a short visit.

No she won't forget to bring gifts, of course not.


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry for the late update, my self discipline isn't as good as I'd like to believe.

No I don't own Harry Potter

* * *

 _In the world of dance, there's the fake and the real dancers. The fake being girls in ballet ads, you know, those who put on their pointe shoes like another sandal, without even crying first. The real dancer's are those who train for months without being able to think about other things, who's toes bleed every night, and who probably cries every time they have to put on her pointe shoes._  
 _(A common injury that the real dancers come home with is a strained neck, that's the price for imitating swans all day.)_

 _In the world of dance, there's a few questions you should ask yourself if you think you're a real dancer._

 _1\. How long does it take before you find yourself shopping for pointe shoes when you're clearly trying to find a birthday present to your mom?_  
 _One point for under five minutes, two points if you never even thought about your mothers passion for flowers._

 _2\. How often do you find yourself sleeping in your leotard?_  
 _One point for every day of the week, three points if you're hair has a permanent crease after your ponytail/bun_

 _3\. Do you consider yourself to be a master at french even if you studied german in school?_  
 _One point for every time a french speaker looked at you like you were an alien if you ever tried out your language skills._

 _4\. How does your youtube history look?_  
 _Thought so._

* * *

Lily finds herself internet shopping every time she's stressed. Not that it's the biggest problem in the world, but it's worth noting.

Right now there's a red pair of pointe shoes on their way.

* * *

The first day of December comes and they have to try their costumes for the dance. And, well, Lily loves it all. The dress Giselle wears in the first act is cute but a little silly, but the white dress from act two, well. The white dress is like a dream coming true, Lily looks like the bride of every young girls dreams. And when Nico joins her at the mirror she's sure he's going to propose, he looks exactly as struck by astonishment as Lily feels.

"You know..."

"No I don't, what?"

"Nevermind"

"it's okay to call me hot, Nico, that's what I am"

Nico chokes, his cheeks turning red. He looks down at her, even though he's discreet Lily knows that he looks at some parts more than others. Like her hips, not that Lily can judge him, with her pear formed body she's got some amazing hips.

Not that Nico is the only one to look, Lily concentrates on Nico's wide shoulders and forces her eyes to not stray any lower. It would just be embarrassing to look down at his tights, his penis is a bit to observable for her liking. Nico's shoulders are a masterpiece themselves, not that Lily would ever think so about her friend, but she wouldn't object if Nico would just rip off his silly west for just one moment.

"Hey Nico" she mumbles as she turns around to look at herself from behind. She takes her friend's silence as a cue to continue "You'll be the best looking Albrecht I'll ever see"

"I feel the same, I mean, about you"

* * *

Miranda turns out to be a splendid Hilarion. Even though the costume department is way to eager to show just how gay Hilarion is. Otherwise Miranda wouldn't be the only ballerina in the studio who gets to dance with her hair loose. Lily looks on, just a little bit envious, when Miranda does a pique turn and her dark curtains of hair flies around. As she looks she realizes her newest friend is a work of art, she's just like a sparrow, slender and free. And when Miranda catches her eye, and they lock gazes for just one second, Lily almost falls in love.

For a second she wonders why the hell she's suddenly so turned on by her friends.

* * *

 _The first act in Giselle starts on a sunny day, because of Giselle being a ballet everyone is dancing. Suddenly a nice-looking guy in very tight pants jumps into the scene, and when the guy suddenly has a boquet of flowers. Well, the public should be able to understand what that means; (the fuckboy from the middle ages is in town) it's going to be a cute romance._

 _Later on when Giselle turns up, she turns out to be quite wimpy, and it's like the older version of twilight. Two boys, one girl, who will she choose?_

 _Spoiler; she choses death_

* * *

Miranda and Nico and Lily, they all share the love for McDonalds. So of course that's the place they find themselves on a friday night in Paris. With Miranda devouring a veggo burger and Nico eating only fries.  
Lily looks down on her burger and feels a mix of hunger and disgust. Something she misses from her old country is the quality of fast food.

"Why aren't you eating?" Miranda suddenly asks and unfortunately gives Lily a splendid moment to show off her patriotism.

"Because it's all wrong, don't you see?" Lily screeches as she motions towards her burger. "Where's the fucking mayonnaise?"

"What" Nico asks calmly, he looks at Lily as a tourist looks at a russian, "there's not supposed to be any mayonnaise on a burger, Lily"

Lily mutters something back, not loud enough for them to hear, just so they'll have to ask what she said.  
"What did you say?" Miranda asks, as if they're playing a movie and they're all actors following their lines.

Lily almost smirks, this thing with talking low is an ancient tactic; it gives you time to think of your next line.

"I said," Lily stands up, raising her voice, suddenly loud enough for everyone to hear; "WHERE'S THE FUCKING MAYONNAISE?"

Before anyone in the McDonald's have time to react Lily's rushing towards the cash register and pulling out a tube of _Delouis'_ mayonnaise at the same time. "See you in hell, frog" Lily whispers before pressing the tube, successfully spraying the floor tiles mayonnaise-white.

Before she runs out, Lily looks up at the cashier and locks their gazes. She makes sure he'll never forget her face before turning around.

Miranda and Nico and Lily, they run out the store as one, with Lily first. Her hair flowing in the wind like a bonfire, lighting up their way.

 _Miranda and Nico and Lily, because they are one._

* * *

The three of them run for a good ten minutes, which is by far the longest time Lily's been running since, well. They end up by Seine, winded and still hungry. When Lily looks around them she realizes that Miranda sagged after and walks about two hundred meters behind them.

"You couldn't wait before I got the chance too eat up?" Nico grumbles as he rubs his stomach. Not that his fries would have made any difference for him, Lily thinks, Nico could probably eat a whole cow without getting full. During training he always packs lunch boxes with him, and during double passes he brings four.

Miranda closes in on them, red in her face and with a bead of sweat on her forehead. Lily swears she's never seen Miranda looks so pissed before, which isn't really so weird because they've only been friends for like a week.

"What the fuck was that necessary for?" Miranda shouts and Lily suddenly feels so small. And she crosses her arms in defense, because whenever she's threatened Lily opts for the easiest way to sort everything wrong.

"It's not like you think" she mutters, sounding like a child on her voice, "I knew him, and he was an ass" As she speaks she looks up at Miranda, and maybe there's something in her eyes that persuades Miranda because her face softens. And softly, just like a mother or maybe a best friend, she asks "what did he do"

And maybe it's Miranda's voice or the look in her eyes that breaks her, because suddenly there's something hot and wet on Lily's cheek. And goddamnit, she's crying.  
"He just left" she whispers, and okay, Miranda doesn't know the whole story. Maybe she'll never will, and that doesn't really matter. But the hug she gives her is really fucking perfect.

* * *

That night, Lily and Miranda sleep together on the floor in Lily's apartment. And well, Miranda doesn't really leave.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer; No I don't own Harry Potter

A/N  
-Maybe I'm a bit harsh on Giselle and Albrecht, the ballet isn't that bad.  
-I hope you haven't forgotten Rebecka, she's back and still pissed at Lily. Hopefully we'll find out why some day.  
-really sorry that I haven't updated in a while, I got distracted...

* * *

 **8th December 2024**

She's to return home in sixteen days, maybe she should book a flight. Or a train, height's aren't really her specialty.

(Dear God, what if they want her to use a portkey, or floo powder. She would have to visit the old floo station in town, which is an old building made for those wizards who don't have a fireplace in their house. And then they would recognize her, Potter's young daughter who ran away. And then they would call Rita Skeeter, and Lily's hiding place in Paris would be gone.)

No, better to take the train. Even though it's a few hours in a small cabin, hopefully she'll be in time to Christmas dinner. Or well, hopefully she'll get stuck on the train and get a free pass out of it all.

* * *

"Good morning" Lily mutters, her voice quite hoarse after just waking up. Miranda smiles and tries to get out some words out of her bread-filled mouth, it sounds more or less like Chewbacca from Star Wars but Lily pretends to understand.

Miranda is the one who make breakfast in their small apartment. She serves Lily with coffee and a bowl of yogurt, she's done it since she first walked trough Lily's door. It's quite nice, waking up to the smell of hot coffee and then seeing Miranda's makeup free face for a moment before the foundation's back on.

Miranda's face is a work of art in it's complexity, there's not a single space that's clear of acne scars or freckles and due to her being Italian she's got some amazing brows. Lily almost wants to tell her friend to skip her makeup, just for one day. No one at the studio would notice, they're all to self-absorbed there (including Lily, even if she doesn't admit it).

As a friend, Lily doesn't tell Miranda about her thoughts. But instead she makes a point of reminding Miranda to wash her face after a long day of training. And well, maybe Lily also makes just a little more of an effort with her eyeliner, just because.

Doesn't hurt to look fly as hell together with your newest best friend after all.

* * *

 _Coffee n' Space_ suddenly got very popular after some weird Instagram shit. Suddenly there's people waiting outside the cafe even before it opens, knocking on the entry door as Lily cleans up the place before opening. They're all nerdy hipsters who give her the evil eye as they complain about the wait, but Lily just shrugs. She doesn't remind the guests that it's eight in the morning and way to early to post trendy pictures of coffee.

"I want the large cappuccino with caramel syrup and your number" the first guy in line says, he's not sporting a beard like the others but he still has that annoying sense of haughtiness. He doesn't even look ashamed of his horrendous pick up line, which he should, according to Lily.

"Umm," Lily begins, and to her embarrassment she starts biting her lip–a habit she picked up as a child when she got nervous. "Not today, come back tomorrow"

The hipster looks half crushed and half hopeful, "but why tomorrow?" he grumbled, but with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

"Because," Lily takes a deep breath, "tomorrow I'll have a shovel to bury your body with"

* * *

Her comeback is a success, everyone loves it except for Rebecka–the tall girl just sneers at her before writing something down in a notebook that Lily is a hundred percent sure she's going to show their manager.

Lily just shrugs, hopefully she'll still have a job tomorrow. Otherwise she'll have to talk to Miranda about their economy, their agreement of Lily paying the rents and Miranda buying the food will probably have to change in that case.

"Dream girl!" another hipster from the same company as earlier booms out over the local "do you serve Irish?"

Lily puts on a teasing smile as she lifts an eyebrow, "you'll have to come back after eight, dream boy" Her words leave an tangible reaction, all the hipsters cheers at her, they're more like college boys than bearded men. Lily feels her lips curl into a small smile, she doesn't know if it's because of real happiness or nostalgia.  
Lily's only seventeen, her university age isn't over. But she knows she'll never attend university or become a student again. After dropping out of school you can't really go back with your pride left intact. You could call it the professional ballerina's curse, she'll forever be just a dancer and nothing else.

"Do you know anything of Italian vampires?" she asks the college group, and when their faces scrunch up in wonder she giggles at them, "maybe you'll be perfect for debate night"

* * *

On Tuesdays Lily works two shifts, 8 in the morning to noon and then 6pm to midnight. It's hard for her aching feet but she manages, does it every week, she has to.

During the free time between her shift's Lily's usually catching up on her sleep, but today she's got other plans. Instead of taking the subway home she walks the short distance to the Carrousel du Louvre. There's only a short distance to the shopping center, she just crosses over the river and makes a left. And then she sees the gigantic glass pyramid, it's surrounded by a group of tourists who wants to follow in the Davinci Code's footsteps.

During the time it takes her to walk it begins to snow, big fluffy snowflakes chilling Lily to the bone. She curses, fastens her pace and wishes for spring.

* * *

The reason why Lily is so early with her Christmas shopping is because she's a practical person, if she gets done today there's no reason to think of the upcoming torture for sixteen more days.  
Hallelujah praise the amazing Lily.

To help her she's got a list with her relatives names, she decided to sort her family by the amount of hate she feels towards them. So of course she starts with Victoire and then she'll just work her way down. Because her dumb cousin is a veela she wants something that plays on her violent side, Lily finds a baseball bat in the sports shop. She knows that she has some old bottle of pink spray color so she'll use that to pimp it up. Maybe she'll carve in the number to the beardless hipster if her dear cousin suddenly gets desperate. (the busty blonde also likes french meat so Lily doesn't think it would be too much of a problem)

Proud of her tactical sense, Lily crosses Victoire's name of the list. She continues to her next relative; Molly, with a deep sigh.

* * *

The positive side of being a squib in a family of wizards is that none of your relatives has any idea whatsoever about muggle stuff. This makes it a much easier task of buying Christmas gifts, she just buys a lot of mp3's and some mechanic pens. Her favorite aunt; Hermione, gets a stack of newly published books. Lily knows Hermione is going to love the mix of feminist biography's and the latest _hunger games_ prequel.

The last cousin to buy a gift for is Hugo, he is also the hardest. Lily sometime came up with the idea that the better you know someone the harder they are to buy a gift for. You feel much more pressure that you have to buy something that is just _them_ and no one else's.

Thinking of Hugo hurts, she hasn't seen him since she was fifteen and moving out. He sent her a letter last christmas, wishing her happiness and good luck for her next performance. She threw it in the trash without answering, shut the window in the owl's face. If Lily remembers right, the letter came just a few days after Lily twisted her knee hours before her performance as the black swan.

A quick glance at her phone tells her she has to get back to work, heavily loaded with gifts and all.

"I swear by Merlin," Lily murmurs at the sky, "I, Lily Luna, will buy Hugo the best gift ever" Although not today, she silently adds, tomorrow maybe.

* * *

"I once visited Italy" a very drunk and very broken middleaged woman begins later that night, "and the first thing I saw was a vampire sucking someone's neck" A low sigh flows through the audience as the woman continues, she's a tired thing, downturned eyes and a stiff smile. Her clothes are worn out and dirty, but her finger is adorned with a golden ring. Weirdly clean among the dirt.

Despite her judgmental nature, Lily suddenly starts to look at the woman with respect instead of scorn. And when the woman's time is up and another girl takes the stage, Lily makes her way towards the woman. On her way she grabs two lattes and a few crackers, luckily Rebecka's doing something in the kitchen and can't see Lily "stealing" from the cafe.

"hello, may I sit here?" Lily carefully asks the woman when she reaches her, the woman looks up at her with a startled look, she seems to be surprised that someone actually talks to her. She nods, quickly, almost to fast for Lily to catch on. But Lily takes a guess and sits down on the chair next to the woman. She silently gives the woman one of the lattes, and for a while they sit in a comfortable silence as they both drink the hot beverages. The different debaters pass, nobody having anything important on their mind, Lily feels a tingle of malice when she thinks of her and Rebecka's fight earlier in the day. Lily thought that the debate genres were to complicated but Rebecka turned of her ears.

Well, look who was right after all.

The woman turns out to be a quite smart thing, she shares a handful of nasty stories of her life as a former basketball coach. Lily finds herself actually having quite a good time, and when Rebecka hushes at them from the sidelines, Lily only laughs louder. She tells the woman, whose name is Martha, of her annoying family and the upcoming Christmas.

And then, like magic, she's got an idea how to turn the tables. Actually, it was Martha's idea, but Lily promises to give the woman her amount of credit if this becomes a big thing.  
Lily's laugh has never sounded more evil than now.

* * *

"Hi, mom, is it okay if I bring a guest? For Christmas I mean?"

Silence

"Thanks mom"


	6. Chapter 6

**16th December 2024**

He wakes to the smell of whiskey and burned out cigarettes, his mouth dry as sand. As he slowly sits up he realizes that he's been sleeping on the thick persian mat on the floor beside his bed. He also realizes that he never got around to take off his shoes last night, but that he in some way got out of his jeans in the intoxicated state he was in. He looks around the small hotel room and gets a glimpse of the grey fabric thrown over a lamp shade. Jesus.

It takes him a few minutes to find his phone, in the end he finds it lying outside on the balcony. He curses at himself as the battery bar stares back at him with just a small red streak at the end of the battery. He sighs and curses at his drunk self; he doesn't have any time to charge his phone today. He needs to be down eating breakfast in a little less than half an hour, out of the hotel in forty five minutes.

Slowly, with the motions of a dead man, he grabs some of the clothes still lying in his bag. He hopes that they're still clean, or at least that they don't smell.

Lucy walks into the room just right in time to see him stuck with his head in one of the arm holes in a dark blue t-shirt. She silently helps him get himself unstuck and their eyes doesn't meet when his sight clears.

They don't talk much, the two of them, not anymore. Lorcan doesn't open his mouth even once as they make their way down the stars, but he feels Lucy's eyes on his back the whole time. She's always watching him, but she doesn't seem to _see_ him. Maybe she looks through him, he thinks, not that it matters. He doesn't have the guts to look into her eyes either, he already knows what he's going to find if he'd look; muddy brown and a deep fucking ocean of tears.

"You look like shit" is the first thing he hears as he steps down into the breakfast room, it's one of the sound technicians who says it. Maybe his name is Dave, maybe it isn't, Lorcan doesn't ask. He doesn't even give Dave-or-whatever any sort of reaction to his words.

He drinks coffee for breakfast, water for lunch and vodka for dinner. It's somewhat of a routine now.

Lucy looks at him, through him, she doesn't say anything

* * *

As they walk the streets of Rome, ice cream in one hand and the other one warding of fans, he wonders if he's turned into superman. At least people react to him as if he's some sort of heavenly warrior sent to give love to the nation.

Maybe he is superman, Lorcan muses with a smile at the corner of his mouth. A fucked up superman who backfired on himself and turned into some void of emotion, who spreads cigarette ash and the smell of whiskey on the streets as he walks by.

"hey, Lucy" he mutters to her backside as she walks in front of him, she whips around so fast he wonders if she's been waiting on him to say something. Her eyes are big and brown, she's sweating buckets. She's beautiful.

"What?" Lucy asks and her voice doesn't match her eyes, because none of the vulnerability that he sees in her eyes are let out into her voice. Instead she sounds distant, impatient to continue walking, walking away from him.

Lorcan nods towards a store in which he can see mannequins wearing different lingerie, it's a red one in particular that catches his eye. Lorcan's got a good eye, he already knows that Lucy's soft body would fill out the fabric perfectly, the red would also go fantastic with her auburn hair.  
"What do you think, we go inside, you try it on, we buy it, we'll have fun tonight?"

Lucy scoffs and turns around again, speeds up her pace. The drummer from the background band laughs, another guy he doesn't know the name off. He keeps looking at her back, watches the small hairs at the nape of her neck turn in the wind. He wonders what she's thinking about as she stretches out one of her arms and traces the dented fasade of one of the brown houses they walk past. The sunlight reflecting against the gold of her engagement ring on her finger, the sight of the ring feels like a literal punch to the face.

Sometimes, Lorcan thinks, he just hates her.

* * *

During the four years that they've been an "item", they've released three albums, sixty three songs in total if he counts the singles too. And as they stand in front of the thousands of italians, wearing their best shoes and sugar spun smiles, Lorcan sings his heart out for every fucking person in the stadium. As he does every night, his version of true love.

He sings for Lucy too, even if she doesn't know that. With her bass slung over her shoulder and her oversized sweater, as she sings with the dreamy voice that captures everyone's heart, she's magical. Her eyes are no longer mud, they're melted gold and he wants to tangle his hands in her hair. Taste her skin, drag her into his chest so she stays there. Next to his beating heart, safe from the reality, shielded inside his ribcage.  
(if he tried, she would break him from the inside, bend every rib out of his body as she flew from his bodily prison, he knows that, still the thought lingers on)

"And the last song is for my best girl!" Lorcan shouts out to the thousands of fans, he turns towards Lucy. Hopes that his words work their way into her mind, her heart.

She doesn't spare him a glance and instead looks down at her bass, the rhythm echoes out of the speakers. He feels his mouth open, sound coming out. He feels himself die on the inside.

* * *

 _'darling come closer_

 _let me hold you_

 _we can be perfect_

 _we can be perfect again'_

* * *

It's the last night in the hotel, he feels himself growing tired of the white walls and leather couches. He's already opened the first bottle, ready to swallow down a few of the new sleeping pills together with the burning liquid. This time he's sure to put his phone on charge.

He's just lifted the bottle to his mouth when she knocks on his door, opening the door just a little. He sees her face in the gap between the door and the wall, it's round and surrounded by a dark halo of hair. He's so concentrated on the little dimple on her chin that it takes him a while to realize that she's talking.

"Wait", he mumbles, his voice soft and still—thank god for that—sober "can you repeat?"

Lucy sighs deeply, she looks permanently tired nowadays, "I wondered if you want to follow me back to England over Christmas?" she must see the confusion in his eyes and quickly adds "visit family you know"

He shrugs, whatever, he'll be drunk the whole time anyway. "Sure"

* * *

In another world and two countries away, Lily tiredly exclaims;

"jesus Miranda, just fucking follow me and I promise you'll get laid. My cousins are hot!"

* * *

 **This chapter took me soo long to finish, I'm so sorry**


	7. Chapter 7

**20th December 2024**

It's Friday morning and never in Lily's life has time passed so slow. As she looks outside the window she sees the flat scenery that France provides, she loves the country she's built up her new life in but she sometimes wishes that she would be able to see more mountains on her way to hell.

She's tried reading, but the words just flow into each other and she can't get a hang of the plot. Her phone's dead since about 0500 and she's quite sure that she's dying of boredom now. How many hours is there left until they reach the England border? Three?

Lily tries to stretch but the seat that she shares with Miranda is to small, she just ends up hitting Miranda in the head and Miranda groggily opens her eyes, she seems to have fallen asleep. After a confused look around in the train wagon she lets her gaze land onto Lily; "what?"

Lily looks down at Miranda's phone that she so tightly clutches in her hand, "what are you listening to?" she asks. She realizes now that she hasn't bothered Miranda enough during their trip, now she's gotta make up for lost time.

Miranda gives her a sceptic look "the nifflers" she spits out, and even though Lily has no idea what the fuck kind of band the nifflers are, she flinches at the name. "The nifflers?" she echoes back, and it's only when a few heads towards them that she realizes that she spoke too loud.

Miranda sniffs and turns on her phone, she clicks on an app and then she shoves the phone in Lily's face. It takes a while for her to realize what she's looking at, but when she does she's unable to look away; it's a golden bird in the middle of lunging after a prey, the light glistening against its body which, Lily realizes, has to be bronze. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

When Lily looks up again she sees that Miranda's gaze is concentrated on the scenery outside. She guesses that their conversation is over, which is good, she suddenly needs time to think. Because what kind of wizardz starts a band with a part of the most secret wizarding school's logo?

Fucking idiots, she thinks, that's who

* * *

For how long has he loved Lucy Weasley? Well, there's many answers to that. It could be when he saw her falling down from her broom that time in third year, and he was the only one still awake by her bedside when she woke up, and she greeted him with a smile straight from heaven. Or maybe it was that day in seventh year that he helped her with a new enchantment for painting her nails, and she thanked him with a kiss on the cheek.

Today her nails are painted golden, she did it herself on the way to the airport. He's got no idea how she does it but she can do everything in cars, from her make up to knitting.

He knows that he wrote about it somewhere, in one of those 63 songs that all are about her. It's taken him four years to list off all the things about her he loves, he still has so many things left to say. In his lap there's a notebook, he's already started on their 64th song. She hasn't asked about the lines on the paper, she knows not to ask. Instead she lets him look at her as she reads a book—she's reading the Hobbit, god bless her, he thinks—she knows that the only motivation he needs is her.

God, what a fucking cliche.

* * *

 _she's my sunshine girl_

 _the brightest star in my universe_

 _she lights it all up_

 _my little sunshine girl_

* * *

"Miranda, I've got a marvelous idea"

Before said girl has any time to react, she's dragged away by the person she should call friend but is unable to do in this sleep deprived state that she's in. As they had their final rehearsal for the year yesterday night and the coffee afterwards quickly turned into a full fledged party, they got into bed pretty late. And Miranda's sure that she didn't sleep more than about 40 minutes before Lily woke her and told her the taxi was ready.

As Lily drags her through the train station, Miranda gets a quick look at a giant clock on the wall; 10am. Her stomach lets out a low churn, after this "marvelous" idea that Lily's got, they've really gotta eat something.

Suddenly they're running through the doors with the sign _'exit'_ on, and a cold blast of air hits Miranda in her face. She gasps, and suddenly she realizes that it's raining. Not just raining, it's fucking pouring, she's completely drenched in a few seconds.

"Lily!" She exclaims, "what—" and then she understands when Lily suddenly straightens up, her spin going rigid and her face loosing all emotion. She's seen this before; in the studio and on those nights that they both can't sleep and Lily dances her night away. Miranda watching her moving from her position on her mattress on the floor, she watches for hours until also she falls asleep.

She's not particularly familiar with the duet, it's Lily who chooses their next step, Miranda who tries to follow as good as she can. Sometimes they're so close, Miranda feels Lily's breath against her mouth, they're practically equal in length. Sometimes Lily's a thousand miles away, leaving Miranda's arm outstretched after her as she leaps away.

It's when Lily dances right by Miranda, leaps in the air so high she could have jumped over her, that Miranda gets it; this is Lily's dance. And after a heartbeat she understands why Lily dances by herself at night; she's exploring ballet in ways Miranda hasn't done since grad school. Lily's searching after the joy in dance that they all felt during their first training; the happy surprise when you complete a combination flawlessly for the first time, the nervous laughter before a performance.

And when Lily turns her head towards Miranda and smiles, Miranda realizes that they've found the sun.

* * *

They take a bus from the airport to the train station, from where they'll take a taxi, and Lorcan looks out the window the whole time. He likes Britain when it's raining, and right now it's pouring, it's like paradise for him.

"Lorcan?" it's Lucy who interrupts their silence, and Lorcan gives a 'hmm' as answer. He doesn't turn around because he already knows what he'll see; Lucy's voice is broken, the opposite of when she's singing.

Lucy continues, "Lorcan, when this is all over, Christmas I mean, I think you should see over your drinking"

She lets out a deep breath, and Lorcan hears how she twists in her seat. He still doesn't turn around to face her, he's too angry for that now. Lucy doesn't get it, she doesn't get that the reason he drinks so much is her. He wants to scream at the top of his lungs.

As the silence settles over the two of them, he listens to her breathing. She's breathing quickly and irregularly, he realizes that she's crying. It aches in him to take her into his arms, but he doesn't move.  
Once upon a time, they were children, and they were happy.

Lorcan wishes that he never grew up.

* * *

The second that their taxi drives from the train station in London, Miranda falls asleep, with her phone unlocked. Because Lily is Lily, she steals the phone out of her sleeping friend's hand. Miranda was looking at her tumblr before falling asleep, and Lily scrolls down the side in mild interest.

God, Miranda really likes that band, the Nifflers. She seems to be following at least ten accounts that are dedicated to the band, Lily likes one in particular;

 _KissesAndLorcan:_

 _'Still can't get over how Lorcan kissed that teddy bear in their last interview. Wishes so bad it was me´_

 _67 notes_

Fangirls are desperate, is the thing that stumbles through Lily's mind after she's read the short text. She herself hasn't found anything she actually cares about, except for ballet of course, so she doesn't understand the world that fangirls liv in. She continues scrolling, nodding in acknowledgement at a blog with the name _BallerinaProblems;_ she also has that permanent crease in her hair after those ponytails she uses at training.

The last post that she reads before turning off the phone;

 _Nifflesgirl:_

 _'The saddest thing is how Lorcan looks at Lucy like she's the sun to his universe, and how Lucy looks at him as he's just a Walmart'_

 _138 notes_

Yeah that's some sad shit, Lily thinks before falling asleep, walmart fucking sucks.

* * *

quick update this time, but don't expect that for the next chapter. I'm going to denmark for a while


	8. Chapter 8

They reach the Burrow at sunset, and for a while they just stand next to each other on the overgrown lawn. Lily nervously looking around after some gnomes in the garden, Miranda just seeming to be confused about the house in particular.

Before Miranda gets around to ask how the hell the house doesn't fall in on itself, Lily blurts out something in the style of "we've got a nice carpenter". Which is a total lie, pretty much everyone in her family knows just as much about muggle professions as they know about the periodic table, which isn't much. Too call over a carpenter to the burrow would be suicide for the wizarding world, or at least if you didn't have any 'oblivate' on hand.

Lily and Miranda stand in silence for a little while longer, just looking at the house. A slight breeze blows through the garden and the walls creaks in a ominous fashion. Lily shudders, it's been at least three years since she last stepped foot in the house, she wishes that she never would have returned. She wishes that she and Miranda right now sat in their small apartment in paris, celebrating their Christmas with chips and smoking cigarettes as their Christmas banquet.

"Miranda," Lily waits for Miranda to turn her head and look her in the eye before continuing; "my family's weird, they use the wrong words for everything and have no idea about what's happening in the world, don't die"

She grabs Miranda's hand, grips it tightly, and opens the door.

* * *

"Look who's here!"

It's grandma Molly who screams, efficiently waking Lorcan from his daydreams about being anywhere but here. He tiredly looks around the room, trying to find the new people in the sea of redheads and others. Not so surprisingly he finds them by the door, standing close to each other, as if to protect the other. He recognizes Lily, more by the dark eyes than her face, she's completely changed.

The other girl beside Lily is a complete stranger, a beautiful stranger nonetheless. Long dark hair and thick brows that he, if he were Roxanne, would call flawless. They're both tall, towering over short little grandma Molly. They look like swans, so pale

The unknown girl's holding out some gigantic bag to grandma Molly, she says something but the words are lost in the crowded room. Lorcan assumes that it's Christmas gifts, suddenly he feels bad about not even buying some bottle of fire whiskey for the party. Not that anyone's going to judge him for it, but the thought hadn't even crossed his mind.

The two girls make their way into the house, Weasley friends and relatives opening up a path for the two of them. Lorcan thinks of Moses opening up the red sea, he sniggers into his drink. The Lily he knew from four years ago would never be any kind of savior, not this either, judging by her disinterested face and her rigid back. She looks like she's calculating ways she could flee, like she's just preparing her body for running out of their lives and never returning. For real this time.

Suddenly this evening seems to turn into something interesting, Lorcan muses before downing his drink.  
He pointedly avoids Lucy's worried gaze, hopefully he'll drink his liver to death before they have to return to their tour.

* * *

As they sit down by the dining table, Miranda gets to sit with Lily on her right and some redhaired fella on the other side. Thankfully he's talking to another redhaired guy across the table. Judging by how much the two look like each other, Miranda supposes that they are brothers. Just as she sighs in relief that she doesn't have to actually speak to this guy, Lily introduces them;

"Miranda, this is Charlie, my uncle, he's a firefighter" Lily then reaches over Miranda's plate and pokes this 'Charlie' on the shoulder, "Hey, Charlie, this is Miranda"

Charlie gives Miranda a look over without any sort of interest before going back to his conversation, instead it's a breathtakingly beautiful woman who sits across Miranda that starts talking to her; "'ow long 'ave you and Lily known each other?" she says with a french dialect that according to Miranda belongs in some perfume commercial.

Before Miranda answers the question she stays quiet for about two minutes, something that the Charlie fella notices, both he and his brother stops talking and turns their head towards her.  
"About—" Miranda silently counts in her head as she looks over to Lily for moral support, "—Five, four weeks..."

The beautiful woman in front of her doesn't react, not at first, but then one of her thin eyebrows rises towards her hairline. Miranda gulps, but it's too late now to turn around, she continues "I moved in at her place about two weeks ago"

Beside her, Lily sniggers, on Miranda's other side she hears a low chuckle. In front of her the woman's second eyebrow joins the other on its way upwards. "I see.." the woman croaks out, Miranda shudders at the badly disguised distrust that the woman sends out. But before Miranda gets to say anything in defense of hers and Lily's friendship, the woman straightens her back and turns the corners of her lips upwards again.

"At least you're french" she says before flicking a few blonde hair strands over her shoulder, she then sends Miranda a winning smile with sparkling white teeth. Miranda grimaces back, somewhere in the back of her head she sees herself strapped to a table as the beautiful woman embeds knife after knife in her thin body.

"Actually—" Miranda nervously licks her lips before looking the french woman in the eye, the clear blue orbs that stare back at her gives her shivers "I'm italian"  
The table around her explodes in laughter, the Charlie fella turns to the woman with a glint in his eye, "Good grief, Fleur, she got you there"

Miranda just blushes and hopes that she could fall down dead

* * *

Their dinner lasts a lifetime, Lorcan wants to die at least seven times as he has to listen to Lucy and Lysander gush over each other and watch as Victoire gives her Teddy bedroom-eyes. He tries to speak with James, something about his quidditch career, but he gives up. Once upon a time, he almost lived in the burrow, but that was before.

Across the room, Lily's laughing together with her friend. Lorcan wishes himself away, like, Australia. He's heard that winter's nice across the world during this time, he won't have to deal with the shitty weather here at least. Outside it's raining again, the snow from last week only a memory.

"have you heard" James nudges him in the ribs, taking him back from Australia, he blinks at James.

"what?" he asks, and his voice is just a bit to irritated for the day and he sees the hurt in James' eye. Instantly he tries to smooth over his mistake; "sorry, about what?"

James smile tilts just a bit, giving his face a mischievous look, "you see Lily's hot friend," he waits for Lorcan to nod before continuing, "I've heard that she's a muggle"

Lorcan has to do a double take, he wonders if the girl looks like a muggle. Then he has to ask himself, how the hell does a muggle look like?'

"Jamie" he mutters to his friend, "get Freddy, I think I need to help you with a traditional muggle prank"

James' grin tells him all he needs; the game is on.

* * *

Across the room, Lorcan hears Lily say in a high pitched voice; "Uncle Bill, don't talk shit about dwarves!"

* * *

As I said, this chapter would take a longer while to make, I guess Bill started talking shit about the goblins that work at gringotts.

Hope you like it!


	9. Chapter 9

Once upon a time, he was a ravenclaw. With his blue tie and blue blue eyes, he had a bright future ahead of him. The adults liked to praise him, put him on a pedestal, show him to the world as their next golden boy.

The only one who didn't sing his glories were his mother, beautiful and brilliant Luna, who saw through him with her blue blue eyes. Who neither encouraged or discouraged his ambitions. She would just bring him back down to earth with a quick glance, and some arid comment.

"I know he seems to soar right now," Luna would tell the other parents, as if to calm their worship, "but he'll fall someday, he's that sort of person, a realist"

Of course he fucking fell, like Icarus he crashed down onto the cold earth. Lying on the cold hard ground, staring up at the sky where he could see pretty little Lysander closing in on the sun, his brother never had the same kind of ambition as him. Lysander had gained the ability to dream, something that Lorcan lacked. Something Lorcan was forever envious off.

After all, miracles only happens to those who believe in them, not those in waiting.

...

He started playing the piano during his years in muggle school, an hour or so after every school day. While Lysander found himself tumbling around on the football field, Lorcan started to learn the art of music. It wasn't like Lorcan was uninterested in sports, it was more of the opposite, Rolf would sometimes have to shout himself blue when the two boys didn't return from the football field in time for dinner.  
The thing with the piano that attracted Lorcan so was the endless possibilities, whenever he learned to play a song, there were millions of new. He quickly became a favorite of his music teacher.

Some nights, after finishing a particularly hard assignment and being the last to slanter out of Ravenclaw's common room, his fingers would tingle after the black and white keys of his piano.  
It was during those times that Lorcan Scamander, son of a hero and a magioozolist, wished that he still walked among muggles.  
During one of those day-trips to Hogsmeade he found himself an old guitar, learned himself from scratch. Playing The Beatles and sometimes even Elvis in the common room, during night of course, he quickly mastered the art of good silencing charms.

He never returned for his seventh year, instead choosing to go underground in London, playing in dingy bars and living at some new friend's apartment. He mastered the art of falling in love with his public, but never learned the trick of how to let go when the last guest closed the door behind him.

When he returned to his family and former world, they almost couldn't recognize him. Gone was the boy with pretty hair and sad songs to sing, he returned with a guitar on his back, a worn out leather jacket and some amazing stories to tell.

It was during that time that Lucy found him, Lucy with the dark hair. Lucy with the raspy laughter and amazing voice, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.  
(Lucy, fresh out of Hogwarts, wishing for adventure. And Lorcan, pessimistic and realist)

Amazing Lucy, who just couldn't fall in love with him.

* * *

She loses Miranda in the crowd directly after dinner, walks around the room trying to find anyone she actually likes.

And that's when they, the two main characters, crashes into each other actually. Cursing and spluttering as Lorcan's wine glass tips over and drenches Lily's mint green blouse.

"What the fuck?!" Lily shouts, because after three hours of bullshit she's not ready for this shit. She pins Lorcan down with her dark eyes, and almost loses her anger when she sees him quaking in his expensive-looking shoes.

"Oh god!" Lorcan exclaims as he grabs his wand from some kind of hidden pocket "I'm so so sorry, let me fix—"

"NO!" Lily screams, drawing attention from some folks nearby, quickly she grabs Lorcan by the collar and marches into the kitchen. She doesn't let him go until they're inside and she sees that the course is clear, then she shoves him into the dining table and pulls off her blouse.

"Wha—" Lorcan starts but Lily cuts him off "give me your shirt!"

Too scared to actually function, he obeys and pulls off his t-shirt. She grabs it from him and puts it on, and suddenly they're both laughing. Lorcan laughs until his stomach hurts and he has to bend over. She does the same, flops down on one of the yellow kitchen chairs. As she finally stops laughing, she sighs, looks up at him with a fond smile. He looks down at her from his standing position, and then sits himself across from her. For a few seconds they just sit across each other before Lorcan tires and sticks out his tongue to her, Lily throws her head back, grinning against the ceiling;

"I've been gone for, like, five years and you're still scared of me!" she mutters, her voice sounding a bit choked, he kicks her shin beneath the table. She hisses in pain but doesn't do anything back, he takes that as a good sign. Maybe being away from all this madness has calmed her temper.

"So what have you've been up to, then?" he asks her, just to fill the silence. Lily turns her face back down, looks him thoughtfully in the eyes, he notes that her eyes turns the color of firewhiskey in the dim lightning from the kitchen lamp, he notes that she's beautiful.  
"just dancing, you know, and you?" she says, and he wonders when her one true passion in life became just "dancing"

He wants to ask her more— _what dance are you working on right now? do you get any money from it? oh Lily, is it nice in France?_ _—_ but he stays silent, pretends to be thinking over his answer. He wants so say something witty— _Just singing about pretty girls and living to the fullest, you know_ —but in the end he just shrugs; "I fell in love with a guitar and now I'm kinda rich," he says, half-joking. He _is_ rich, but the only thing to hold is heart is Lucy fucking Weasley.

Across from him, Lily's face cracks into a wide smile "the nifflers, right?" when he nods she grins at him, all teeth and just a bit embarrassed "truth to be told, I first heard about you yesterday,"

He raises one of his eyebrows at her, "really? you've been living under a stone or something?" she laughs again, softer this time, and for a while they just sit there, in a comfortable silence. And Lorcan lets his mind wander, focuses his gaze onto one of the darker spots on the kitchen window. Outside it's snowing, big fat snowflakes sailing through the air.

"Wanna get out of here?" Lily asks, but her voice sounds so far away it takes his brain a while to register that she's talking to him. Instead it's the feeling of her sharp nails against the back of his hand that takes him back to reality, when she lets go of his hand he sees that she's left deep imprints on the soft skin.

No wonder he's still terrified of her.

"Is that a no?" she asks him, and he has to ransack his brain before remembering what she asked him earlier. "No, let's go somewhere else,"

* * *

She sends a short message to Miranda as they're putting on their coats and shoes. Lorcan conjures up another t-shirt while Lily looks away, she ignores his whining about Lily stealing his favorite shirt("But that blue color looked so good on me!" "Shut your mouth and let it be, Lorc")  
Outside it's cold as fuck, but she takes Lorcan under the arm, presses herself close to him. That makes the cold go away, though he's not warm enough to melt her heart. Unfortunately.

"take me anywhere, small singing boy" she whispers against him.

and he does

* * *

really sorry it took so long for me to finish this one, but i've gotten kinda busy with school and all.


	10. Chapter 10

he takes her to a bar, somewhere in London, and the air smells of vodka and sex and cigarette smoke. She loves it.

"Did you know that I used to dance in a bar just like this?" she asks him, and when he raises an eyebrow in response, she laughs. She won't tell him of those lonely nights she plowed through during that time. when the only thing that kept her going were the music, bellowing from the speakers. She won't tell him of all the screams and laughter that followed her home and left her sleepless

They walk up to the bar, and she orders vodka, plain. when she does, he looks at her with something that maybe could have been love. In return, she gives him one of her crooked smiles, then she takes his hand, escorting him to a booth in the far back of the bar. The place where all the lonely men and wizards scared of being found out hides. Since it's christmas it's quite empty, two out of three booth's are empty, Lily chooses the one farthest away from the only other person whose lonely enough to spend his night here.

Just like in the kitchen at the burrow, they sit in silence. Lily downs her drink during the first minute, turns her head upward and stares at the ceiling. She doesn't register what Lorcan's doing, truthfully she doesn't really care. She just lets the clinking of glasses and one of those old Rihanna songs lull her into something that could be sleep if she just closed her eyes.

Lorcan's the one to cut the silence, in a hushed tone he asks "Hey, Lil," when she hmm's back he continues, "why do you keep running from us? From Hugo?"

When she doesn't answer him he takes a jug out of his beer, puts down the glass with a cold clirr. Lily just keeps staring upward, counts the ceiling cracks, blinks away the wetness in her eyes.

Ten seconds pass, eleven, twelve—

Lily straightens in her seat, doesn't look at Lorcan when she opens her mouth, looks at something beside him instead; "Lorcan, so much happened to me in the muggle world during that first year, you know"

Lorcan nords but he doesn't know, he won't ever know. Lily will never tell anyone about those things, about her first shabby apartment in Madrid, or the boy with sparkling green eyes, or the trip to the ER with severe burns on her arms, or the STD, or the rush of adrenaline she felt during that first performance with the studio. Those are the things she keeps locked up inside her heart, those things will go with her to the grave.

For just and instance, their eyes meet, and hers are big and wet and emerald shards, after just a short moment she looks away. It's heartbreaking to listen as her voice almost breaks when she spits out her next sentence; "Lorcan, none of you understood what I was talking about, I could have been an alien for all you gave!"

The silence stretches out over them again, with him staring vacantly into the air and Lily fiddling with her empty glass. Two lonely souls together in a dark corner of a even lonelier bar, not quite finding the support from each other as they may have hoped. Lily even starts to wonder how it's going for Miranda, maybe she's angry at Lily for leaving her alone. She hopes not, maybe Miranda got along fine with Lucy and the others.  
When she starts to think about it, they're actually quite alike, Miranda and Lucy. Both are fun and hate cleaning.

Thinking of Lucy brings her back to the reality, to the broken and probably alcoholic man in front of her. She notices that his eyes are blue, not like the sea, more like the sky on a hot autumn day.

"Lorcan, why do you write about her?" Lily asks, and she knows that her words are wrong and absolutely not her business the moment they're out of her mouth. Before her, Lorcan crumbles, his eyes focusing for a few seconds before they fill with something that looks like tears, Lily ignores it. Instead she turns her head and just waits.

* * *

"Did you know that I almost married someone to get into a tomato-selling company?" It's Miranda who shouts it, loud enough for herself to hear her own voice over the music. When she looks around the group of poeple sitting on the sofa's, she sees that they're looking at her in disbelief. Miranda almost laughs when she sees the redheaded youngsters hungering after her story's continue. She doesn't laugh and instead settles for a wicked grin, tries to say something but it drowns in all the other sounds, in front of her Roxanne notices her problem and screams to her brother;

"jesus, Fred, turn off the music!"

The music quickly gets shut off, Miranda finds herself wondering how he turned it off so fast. Fred didn't even get up from the sofa, but before she gets around to ask him, Lucy nudges her in the side.

"okay, okay!" she laughs, takes a small sip from the whiskey bottle that James found somewhere and started passing around, "I walked past the tomato stall at the market in Milano, and I—"

"Wait!" James butts in, drunk as fuck and the smell of garbage surrounding him, "are you really saying that it wasn't even a tomato shop, just a market stall that you found on the local town-fair?"

Miranda leans back against the sofa, takes another sip of whiskey before giving it away to Lucy, her whole body's buzzing and she knows that it could be midnight or 6AM right now and she would have no idea. The only thing she's absolutely sure of is that Lily's disappeared with a rockstar, that Miranda's loved for like six years and should rightfully have been introduced to. She also knows that Lucy's sitting _so_ close to her and that Lucy's knee is touching hers and that Lucy's skin is softa and warm and smells like—

"Miranda, no cliffhangers or only God knows what'll happen!" Hugo exclaims and well, with that threat over her head she sure gotta deliver.

"yeah, sure, and no, Freddie, it wasn't just a tomato stall, that tomato stall had the best tomatoes south of"—drunk Miranda sucks at parables—"eh, south of something, and they didn't just sell tomatoes, the also had dried tomatoes, tomato paste, roasted tomatoes, canned—

"STOP IT!" all the Weasleys scream in union, at least fifteen pair of fingers jabs Miranda in the side and she collapses of laughter onto the sofa. After a few minutes of a full-on tickling fight, the calm spreading over the room again, Miranda wipes her eyes from tears, making herself comfortable on the sofa again.

"okay, I promise to be serious now" she says as her grin widens against the cousins, "Anyway, I was broke at the moment, and the owner was cute, so I asked for a date and three months later I was ready to propose."

Aa a dreamy sigh passes through the redheaded crowd, Miranda feels that her grin is starting to become wicked, back at the studio when she told her friends, Lily and Nick had howled over those stories.

"Why didn't you marry him?" Lysander asks from somewhere in the back of room, Miranda realizes that the whole Weasley family's been listening to her memoirs, a bit awkward, to say the least.

"Well, _she_ was nice, but after a while I got sick and puked up at least five yards worth of tomato sauce, after that it became kinda hard to own a tomato business."

When she looks around at her audience, she realizes that they've started staring at her with something weird in their eyes. Miranda feels her heart going down with a pang.

"The tomato owner was a she?" Fred asks, and his voice suddenly sounds different, Miranda gulps.

fuck.

* * *

"have you seen her eyes, Lily, they're brown like dirt, but not in a bad way, you know, dirt in a homely way, you know?"

Lily sighs, last time she checked the time on her phone it was sometime between 2AM and 5AM, but Lorcan's been talking for a while now and there's a permanent crick in her head, and she's so fucking tired.

"And her lips aren't that big, you know, not like Roxy's, more like yours, but when she wakes up they're like really sexy because sometimes she drools while sleeping—

Lily finds her phone lying on the snowy ground, which is weird because she's been searching in her purse for at least fifteen minutes and how the fuck did it end up there. When she turns it on the giant numbers 04.35 shines at her.

She looks around in the empty park, doesn't move any part of her body because her blood's turned to ice quite a while ago and she's in extreme pain right now.

"hey, Lorc, get up!" she quite forcefully stands up from the bench and walks over to him, she thinks off snapping her fingers in front of his face but it turns out to be unnecessary when he blinks and looks up at her.

"why do you ask me a question and then not listen to my answer?" his voice is suddenly filled with irritation, and Lily shudders when his breath hits her in the face, how much vodka did they even drink before getting thrown out of the bar?

Lily takes Lorcan around the shoulder, sends a quick prayer to God for this to go well, "come on Lorc, we need to get home now" She's not that surprised when their apparition turns into a total disaster.


	11. Chapter 11

They end up at least thirteen kilometers from the Burrow, hungry and tired and oh so cold. In the middle of a forest where the snow reaches Lily to her thighs and with an overhanging danger of being hit by falling snow from the trees. The icy air makes Lily's lungs hurt and she feels dizzy after their apparition. As the squib she is she quickly whips out her phone from her pocket and with stiff fingers she tries to find their location on google maps. She swears as the blue dot lands in the middle of fucking nowhere, the nearest road is even farther away than the Burrow, making calling a taxi an impossibility.

"Sweet jesus!" she exclaims at Lorcan, who's sitting down on the snowy ground like a child, staring up at the still dark morning sky with dead eyes. "Did you even pass your apparition test?"

It takes a while for him to answer, and when he eventually does, his voice sounds far-away; "Yes"

Lily scoffs, thinks about leaving this sorry excuse of a wizard in this sorry excuse of winter wonderland. He would probably be missed, but in the end he's just another low-budget idol. After thinking it through she decides to not be a bitch and shoves the brick of a phone into her pocket and grabs him by the shoulder. The task of getting Lorcan up on his feet turns out to be harder than expected and Lily's almost grateful that there's no one to see them in this moment.

As she grits her teeth and pulls on him with every little muscle she owns, she wishes she were anywhere than this.

* * *

she's a fireball

my girl

she'll burn me alive

* * *

She wakes up in a small bedroom, painted in a pale yellow. It's dark outside and the only light she sees is the once slipping in from underneath the door spring. She has absolutely no idea where she is or if it's morning or still night. The only thing she knows is—

oh

for the first time in maybe nineteen years, Miranda's so shocked of herself that she's unable to speak. But after all, that's probably just what happens when you wake up in the same bed as the most beautiful girl in the world _and_ the idol you've had adult crush on for like three years.

A bit sad and very much hangover, Miranda realizes she needs to get out before Lucy wakes. She's no fool, she knows that Lucy has a fiance, a really pretty boy too, and that Miranda has to end this before 'this' actually begins. With a sigh she sits up in the bed, looking down at the beauty lying next to her. It almost aches in her to run her fingers through the red hair that's spread out like a halo around the sleeping girl.  
Just as she readies herself to de-tangle her limbs from Lucy, the other girl opens her eyes. Damn, Miranda thinks before burying herself in Lucy's brown eyes, that girl has really beautiful eyes.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Lucy groggily asks, and if Miranda didn't get the tickles in her lower regions because of her raspy morning voice, she probably would have come up with a better answer. As it is now, she just shrugs with a "dunno" on her lips as she wiggles her foot out from underneath Lucy's body.

After a quick glance from Lucy, Miranda feels obliged to give her girl a better answer; "Well," she stars, suddenly feeling a bit nervous, which is quite unusual for someone like Miranda; "I, uh, I don't really know where I am, so I don't really know where I'm going," _if that makes sense._

Lucy squints, reaches up a hand which she places on Miranda's bare thigh. She says something but Miranda can't really comprehend the words, she's way to focused on the cold fingers against her skin. She wonders why it is that Lucy can break her bones and build her up again with just a touch.

Miranda doesn't get a chance to recover from the leg touch before Lucy's dragging her down to the bed again. And well, she's still got time to end this, right?

* * *

she's the hurricane

my girl

always slipping through

* * *

Her phone's down on 3% and Lily's about two seconds away from screaming into the void of this forest. The only positive thing Lily can come up with in this situation is that she didn't choose her stilettos and instead put on her sneakers for this party.

When her phone eventually shuts down, she angrily spins around to look at their surroundings and in some way find out where they are. Surprisingly there's only fucking tree's around her. Because of the child she still is on the inside, Lily angrily stomps on the snow covered ground. It hurts a lot and just makes her more angry.  
Behind her, Lorcan's trying to catch up. His damp hair lies plastered to his forehead and his eyes are constantly blinking away the melted snow that runs into his eyes

Lily almost feels pity when she looks at Lorcan, but then she remembers that it's four in the morning and they're lost in a forest, and that it's all his fault. When he finally catches up to her he almost falls into her because of his tiredness. Lily notices that yesterday he was much taller than her but right now he's so small of brokenness and self loathing that she probably could fit him into her palm. Then she notices that she turns into a pretty shitty poet without sleep.

"Hey," Lorcan slurs, and if Lily weren't so tired she would probably have jumped him, because fuck him that's why. But Lorcan continues as he reaches out his hand against her, "I think I can try it again now, apparate, I mean. "

Well, that wasn't what she expected, Lily thinks. And because she's dead anyway and YOLO and all that, Lily accepts his hand.

* * *

she's a flighty bird

my girl

can't catch her

i've tried/i've tried

* * *

This time they end up in the garden behind the Burrow, and Lily grips onto Lorcan for dear life while she waits for the spinning to stop. She's never felt this sick since all the ballerina's at the studio caught the flu and and she had to spend the whole february in bed.

"you okay?" Lorcan asks her but Lily doesn't have any kind of energy left in her body. So instead of answering she just rests her head against his chest and closes her eyes. The only thing she's capable of doing is breathing, and even that is kind of hard for her tired soul.

it takes a while for her to notice that Lorcan's rubbing her on the back, which is, honestly, kind of nice. And that the morning sun is finally up and shining on the two of them.  
"How you feeling?" Lorcan asks again, and she just shrugs as she lets go of Lorcan and takes a step back. His eyes are blue, she notices.

Suddenly Lorcan's leaning forward, and well, he's clearly going to kiss her. His hand is still on her lower back, and she can feel him trying to pull her closer.

"no" she gasps, millimeters away from his lips and he stops. They stare at each other, his eyes are blue, hers are dark brown, she won't kiss him.

He turns away, apparates without a word. Lily stares at the spot he disappeared from, she wonders if this actually happened, or if she's going to wake up in her own apartment soon.

she really hopes so, this nightmare has to end some way

* * *

she's walking on trippy toes

my girl

won't let me kiss her

* * *

Lily finds Miranda on the porch, her packed bag next to her and a lit cigarette stuck between her lips. She's looking down at her phone, and Lily guesses that Miranda's trying to contact her.

"Guess we're both ready to leave" she says and Miranda looks up, she looks clearly shaken, who wouldn't be, Lily thinks, with a family like that.

"yeah" Miranda sighs as she stands up from the porch, she grabs her bag and throws it over her shoulder. She follows Lily through the garden but stops when Lily opens the door to the small shed. "what are you doing?" she suspiciously asks, but Lily just shushes her. it's been years since she last went in here, but she's quite sure that she's looking in the right place.

"aha!" she exclaims as she kicks at an empty basket, revealing a worn and dusty tire. Miranda turns on the flashlight on her camera, and in the sparse light they both look in awe at the black motorcycle. The same dangerous machine that's lasted through two wizarding wars and even survived a complete crash. The reason that it's still in here is because Harry gave it to his daughter when she turned fifteen, and the daughter completely forgot about it.

"Do you know how to drive?" Miranda suddenly asks, breaking the silence, and Lily smiles at the amused undertone in her friend's voice.

"of course, let's get out of here"

* * *

my girl

my best girl

my girl

* * *

will probably post the epilogue some day


End file.
